2020 New York Redistricting

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's harder to cut Stefanik because her seat is in a corner of the state.

[Nyvin]

It's harder to cut Stefanik because her seat is in a corner of the state.

If I had to guess, something like this is probably what they have in mind



https://davesredistricting.org/join/74452af6-1f10-4754-b435-0710131e4185

Basically combining the Republican parts of the current 21, 22, and 24 seats, and then maximizing the R sink around Buffalo.   There's only two safe R districts in this map (21 and 24), but there's also 4 swing seats.   I don't think it's possible to limit Republicans to two seats and make everything else at least likely D so it is risky.

I'm actually of the opinion they don't really need to go crazy with the Long Island seats just because it's trending D pretty well anyway, so in a few cycles all 3 or 4 seats should be held by Dems in a normal map.   If they draw an R sink it might end up being a dummymander sooner than most realize.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One thing: it might not be the best idea to put Oneida in with Onondaga. Onondaga is more R downballot, and Oneida is pretty strongly R downballot, so it's basically a recipe for near-certain R wins against Ds not named Brindisi.

[Torie]

One thing: it might not be the best idea to put Oneida in with Onondaga. Onondaga is more R downballot, and Oneida is pretty strongly R downballot, so it's basically a recipe for near-certain R wins against Ds not named Brindisi.

But it is about Brindisi. But with Katko not his opponent. I suspect the Dems will go my way on this one. We shall see.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One thing: it might not be the best idea to put Oneida in with Onondaga. Onondaga is more R downballot, and Oneida is pretty strongly R downballot, so it's basically a recipe for near-certain R wins against Ds not named Brindisi.

But it is about Brindisi. But with Katko not his opponent. I suspect the Dems will go my way on this one. We shall see.

Well, I am not of the mind that it's inherently or even generally a bad idea. But the best usage of Syracuse from a Democratic gerrymander perspective is still probably to have it be together with Ithaca, IF you want it in a reasonably safe Dem district. Onondaga+Oneida is at best, in neutral circumstances, lean D, with more upside for Rs then Ds.
Of course, one could also put Ithaca and Rochester in the same CD...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

[lfromnj]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Silly to give Rochester Ithaca. Just make an Ontario + most of Monroe district besides the NW part. Give Delgado Ithaca.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Silly to give Rochester Ithaca. Just make an Ontario + most of Monroe district besides the NW part. Give Delgado Ithaca.

I'm not saying it's a particularly excellent map, but its #1 purpose was to see what the map would look like IF rochester-ithaca took place, which allows for the creation of a D+8 seat as opposed to a D+6 one composed of Monroe+Orleans.
Since this would in fact also result in an additional county split I don't favor personally any variant of the map not including such a district.

[lfromnj]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Silly to give Rochester Ithaca. Just make an Ontario + most of Monroe district besides the NW part. Give Delgado Ithaca.

I'm not saying it's a particularly excellent map, but its #1 purpose was to see what the map would look like IF rochester-ithaca took place, which allows for the creation of a D+8 seat as opposed to a D+6 one composed of Monroe+Orleans.
Since this would in fact also result in an additional county split I don't favor personally any variant of the map not including such a district.

This is D+7.4. Wasting Ithaca to just slightly shore up a district that is mostly safe is stupid when Delgado could use it a lot more. This is about where I would say a more elastic district is at its perfect range where it will go D 95% of the time but very few votes are wasted.

[Nyvin]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Waste of Broome IMO - I don't think Rochester to Ithaca makes much sense, but this is how I'd do it -

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bb84424e-fc0b-465e-a285-ebf0db2a7b7c

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Silly to give Rochester Ithaca. Just make an Ontario + most of Monroe district besides the NW part. Give Delgado Ithaca.

I'm not saying it's a particularly excellent map, but its #1 purpose was to see what the map would look like IF rochester-ithaca took place, which allows for the creation of a D+8 seat as opposed to a D+6 one composed of Monroe+Orleans.
Since this would in fact also result in an additional county split I don't favor personally any variant of the map not including such a district.

This is D+7.4. Wasting Ithaca to just slightly shore up a district is stupid when Delgado could use it a lot more.

Wow, I didn't actually personally visualize that kind of district.
Though I figure it could probably be a bit cleaner - that spur running all the way to the county line. Good work nonetheless.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/25edb0f1-16fc-4b6b-8b60-134974e8c594
Thoughts on (particularly) Upstate in this map?

Waste of Broome IMO - I don't think Rochester to Ithaca makes much sense, but this is how I'd do it -

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bb84424e-fc0b-465e-a285-ebf0db2a7b7c

This is probably close to the best compact non-county-split-galore Dem gerrymander in  upstate possible.

[Nyvin]

Here's a good one




https://davesredistricting.org/join/ca953178-4081-427f-9043-643890e5c5ee

Edit - I'm loving my "West Vermont" district, lol

[lfromnj]

The problem is you have given everyone and their mother a swingish D leaning seat in upstate NY and very few incumbents will want that. Upstate NY is also fairly elastic overall .

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

[lfromnj]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

You can lock in a fairly Likely map with only Katko's seat being a weird mix. The reason to give Katko Oneida is for the simple reason for hoping that he gets primaried out by Tenney especially after impeaching Trump. Also people really need to take into account for incumbent homes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

You can lock in a fairly Likely map with only Katko's seat being a weird mix. The reason to give Katko Oneida is for the simple reason for hoping that he gets primaried out by Tenney especially after impeaching Trump. Also people really need to take into account for incumbent homes.

What would such a map look like?

[lfromnj]

What happens if you create 3 safe R seats upstate instead of 2?

You can lock in a fairly Likely map with only Katko's seat being a weird mix. The reason to give Katko Oneida is for the simple reason for hoping that he gets primaried out by Tenney especially after impeaching Trump. Also people really need to take into account for incumbent homes.

What would such a map look like?

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=352854.msg7433988#msg7433988

This post should have most of it, although my newer Rochester District is the most efficient version.

[Brittain33]

Putting suburban Buffalo with inner-city Rochester, and suburban Rochester with both Ithaca and Oswego, is certainly original.

[Torie]

In my biased opinion, the map I put up above is best for the Dems, and perhaps the most likely to be drawn. It even looks reasonably presentable. The idea is to shore up Delgado in NY-19, Maloney in NY-17, replace Tenney with Brindisi, and merge the NY-23 and NY-27, double bunking Reed and Jacobs, leaving Katko in place, and man who will be very hard to beat, and is the most "presentable" Pub in the House from NY. A bonus point is that Jacobs' home is put into the Buffalo CD, so he will either have to run not living in the CD (which is legal), or have to move. If I had to pick between Reed and Jacobs, I would pick Reed.

The Dems upstate thus get it all, given the Tenney, Brindisi and Katko troika, with Katko and Brindisi very strong candidates, who definitely don't want to be running against each other, the noxious and weak candidate Tenney is excised, and the two remaining upstate Pub CD's become one, so the Dems pick up one seat, the Pubs lose two, all the Dem incumbents are made safer, and the map will not be suitable for framing as a poster child as an example of execrable gerrymandering on steroids.

Have I persuaded anybody? Of course not! It's Atlas, were everyone is always right and fully informed!  

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=352854.msg7986074#msg7986074

[Sol]

In my biased opinion, the map I put up above is best for the Dems, and perhaps the most likely to be drawn. It even looks reasonably presentable. The idea is to shore up Delgado in NY-19, Maloney in NY-17, replace Tenney with Brindisi, and get rid of the Reed and his southern tier CD, leaving Katko in place, and man who will be very hard to beat, and is the most "presentable" Pub in the House from NY.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=352854.msg7986074#msg7986074

Or you could put Ithaca in with Katko, which is Dem enough to make things difficult for Katko even with his habit of overperforming in Syracuse.

[Torie]

One could, but Ithaca is being put to good use elsewhere to make a reasonably safe CD for Brindisi (who says he's running again). Binghamton is used to shore up Delgado, and Ithaca is better anyway. As I said, I have no illusions that I will persuade anyone, other than od course, myself.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Here are the maps I was thinking of:

Here is a properly aggressive 25 district NY Democratic gerrymander. It has 23 Dem seats and only 2 Republican seats. If Republicans are really going to be doing things like gerrymandering TN-05 into oblivion, then Dems should do things like this in states like New York. Although what they really should do is a 25-0 map (spaghetti strings from Manhattan to western New York). Maybe if they went 25-0 with ridiculous spaghetti string districts, then the partisan GOP Supreme Court might finally do something to stop partisan gerrymandering.

Anyway, here is my 23-2 map:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/cd0c6d55-3f16-48e5-abd3-714345b3d5c9


NY-01: D+4.24, 55.6% D composite, 58.4% Obama 2008
NY-02: D+9.95, 61.5% D composite, 62.6% Obama 2008
NY-03: D+4.92, 56.4% D composite, 58.1% Obama 2008
NY-04: D+8.68, 60.2% D composite, 57.8% Obama 2008
NY-05: D+12.26, 63.8% D composite, 60.7% Obama 2008 (44% Asian plurality)
NY-06: D+13.08, 64.5% D composite, 66.0% Obama 2008 (42% Black plurality)
NY-07: D+32.86, 84.3% D composite, 79.9% Obama 2008 (36% Hispanic plurality)
NY-08: D+24.35, 75.8% D composite, 73.7% Obama 2008 (44% Black plurality)
NY-09: D+28.61, 80.1% D composite, 77.9% Obama 2008 (44% Black plurality)
NY-10: D+33.85, 85.6% D composite, 84.3% Obama 2008
NY-11: D+12.42, 63.8% D composite, 63.3% Obama 2008
NY-12: D+26.23, 77.9% D composite, 73.4% Obama 2008
NY-13: D+41.46, 93.0% D composite, 90.9% Obama 2008 (54% Hispanic majority)
NY-14: D+11.59, 63.1% D composite, 63.3% Obama 2008 (36% Hispanic, 46% White)
NY-15: D+39.99, 91.5% D composite, 62.6% Obama 2008 (63% Hispanic)
NY-16: D+10.52, 62.1% D composite, 60.5% Obama 2008
NY-17: D+7.53, 59.1% D composite, 59.1% Obama 2008
NY-18: D+5.27, 56.8% D composite, 57.8% Obama 2008
NY-19: D+4.4, 55.9% D composite, 57.3% Obama 2008
NY-20: D+4.8, 56.3% D composite, 56.5% Obama 2008
NY-21: R+13.15, 38.3% D composite, 43.2% Obama 2008
NY-22: D+4.03, 55.6% D composite, 56.2% Obama 2008
NY-23: R+13.64, 37.9% D composite, 43.2% Obama 2008
NY-24: D+5.31, 56.9% D composite, 58.7% Obama 2008
NY-25: D+6.59, 58.1% D composite, 57.9% Obama 2008


Upstate:



If you want to do 23-2, it seems like you have to do something a bit weird upstate to make it work, because the clusters of Dems in the middle of upstate don't quite work out to a whole number of sufficiently Dem districts. The key thing done to solve that issue in this map is that Syracuse is combined with the more Dem parts of the North Country. Onodonga County is cut with the north part of it (including the whole city of Syracuse and the large share of the population) going in NY-24 (D+5.31), and the southern suburbs go into NY-22 and contribute to making it pretty strongly Dem-leaning (D+4.03). It is possible Katko might try to run in NY-22, but if so Brindisi should be favored due to the partisanship of the district, and it should include more of Brindisi's territory. Or possibly Katko might even try to run in NY-21 (presumably along with Stefanik and who knows who else), and who knows who comes out on top in that Republican primary.

There might be some better alternatives to how I did NY-24. Maybe NY-22 could be drawn up to the Vermont-Canada borers directly instead (but that seems hard because of how red the rural areas are that you have to go through). The other alternative that might be better would be to bring back the Buffalo-Rochester earmuffs. Buffalo alone is not enough to support 2 Dem districts, but it could be enough for 1 district and part of another one, if the other part of the second district came from Rochester. Then the remainder of Rochester/Monroe County could be combined with the Dem areas in NY-22/24. That might make it possible for NY-21/22 to have more normal-looking shapes. In that case you would need to draw either NY-20 or NY-19 up to the Canadian/Vermont border though to not waste Dem votes and avoid having to concede a 3rd upstate GOP district. So if you are willing to split Buffalo/Rochester and bring the main Buffalo district down to maybe D+5-6 or so, that might make things more compact elsewhere.

Speaking of Buffalo, NY-02 is moved from Long Island to Buffalo solely in order to keep the numbers of the other districts linked to their current incumbents. So "NY-02" is basically the current NY-26.



NYC/LI:



There are 0 Republican seats downstate. Long Island is exquisitely carved up to make everything be at least D+4. NY-01 is D+4.24, NY-03 is D+4.92, and there is nothing else between that and NY-04, which is D+8.68. So worst case, maybe the Republicans somehow manage to win both NY-01 and NY-03, in which case they get... exactly the same number of seats they have now (minus the Staten Island district). Also, NY-01 is 57% White and NY-03 is 59% white, so Republicans are probably not going to win either of those without doing at least relatively well with BOTH non-white voters and college educated whites. It would be useful to see how Trump did in 2016/2020 though.

NY-04 in particular is messier than it really needs to be while being safe Dem, but the reason for that was just trying to make NY-05 have as high of an Asian population as possible, which led to some awkward precinct choices. If not for that, NY-05/04/14 could be made at least somewhat neater.

AOC gets in on the Long Island cracking action with NY-14. She shouldn't complain. It is definitely better than having her district be eliminated, and in a way it could be a good thing for her. If she ever wants to go anywhere other than the House, it would be good practice for her to figure out how to make her messaging appeal to voters in areas other than urban heavily Dem base areas. Even so, she is in no real danger of losing a D+11.59 majority minority district which also includes the heavily Dem white progressive areas of Astoria. Similarly, Jamaal Bowman gets NY-16 to go a little bit more upstate in order to help out Sean Maloney, but he should also be in no real danger of losing and it is a lot better for him than having his district be eliminated.


All the Dem incumbents which are in remotely competitive districts get improvements in their PVIs, with the one exception of Tonko (NY-20), but that is still D+4.8, which ought to still be safe given that it is based in Albany/Schenectady. Yes, it is possible that the Republicans might on occasion in a strong Republican year win one or 2 of these districts that are about D+4/D+5, but if so in that case Dems will already have lost the House elsewhere in other tipping point districts in other states, and Dems should be able to win them back right away as soon as a Dem year or neutral year comes along. But overall the districts here are generally as safe or safer than those on most maps with 3 or 4 GOP seats. The main thing that could go wrong are further GOP trends in rural upstate areas, but upstate seems to have snapped back to Biden fairly well, and in addition the Dem upstate districts are mostly not that reliant on truly rural votes (but are more reliant on votes in towns and cities which are less likely to trend hard GOP).

I tried re-doing upstate with un-packing Buffalo. It seems like doing that causes some quite beneficial changes for Democrats in terms of partisanship, via a series of chain reactions. It enables more efficient packing of Republican votes overall, and also a better distribution of Democratic votes between the upstate districts, so they are basically all safer and all have a minimum PVI of at least D+5.5 to D+6 or so.



https://davesredistricting.org/join/64b7c0e7-b1a0-4e58-99ee-49feee3bcaf1

I didn't change the downstate districts change, and the upstate or partially upstate district PVIs are now:

NY-02 (moved to be the Buffalo district): D+5.54
NY-16: D+10.39
NY-17: D+7.51
NY-18: D+7.76
NY-19: D+6.1
NY-20: D+6.69
NY-21: R+13.1
NY-22: D+5.82
NY-23: R+16.05
NY-24: D+5.86
NY-25: D+5.47

The thing that sets this all in motion is un-packing the Buffalo district, and adding back a Buffalo-Rochester earmuffs district (NY-25). Using some of the extra Buffalo Dem votes on NY-25 means there are some left over Rochester Dem votes that NY-24 can take (and indirectly pass on to NY-22). It also means that NY-24 doesn't need to go up into the North Country to the Vermont border in order for both NY-22 and NY-24 to be made strongly Dem.

As a result, both NY-22 and NY-24 are stronger Dem, up to nearly D+6 each. That ought to be pretty much unwinnable even for Katko, and in addition Katko's Syracuse base is split up between two districts, both of which have a lot of other Dem territory which is new to him (mainly either in Rochester or in Ithaca/Binghampton). So I would be quite a bit more confident that this map would actually knock out Katko and end up with the advertised 23 D - 2 R result. I think this map would most likely end up producing a Katko-Stefanik primary in NY-21, because Stefanik would not have a realistic shot of winning NY-20, and Katko would not have a realistic shot in NY-24 or NY-22.

Since NY-24 doesn't need to take the Dem (or at least competitive) North Country areas which are near Vermont, NY-20 takes them instead. This also means that NY-18 can pull back from a lot of the heavily R rural areas that it took on in the previous version, which means it can take Republican or competititive territory from NY-19 (and indirectly from NY-20). That allows BOTH NY-19 and NY-20 to become more Democratic, even while NY-18 also becomes more Democratic.

So this is definitely a significant improvement for Dems in terms of the partisanship of the districts. It would be necessary to check against 2016/2018/2020 results, but I would think this should be a pretty sturdy gerrymander. None of the districts are really that dependent on an unreasonable number of rural Dem votes, so as long as Dems maintain reasonable support levels in the cities/suburbs in upstate, these districts ought to hold even if rural areas trend further Republican. The bulk of the heavily R rural areas are packed into NY-21 and NY-23. I would think the only way these districts would fall is in an extreme Republican wave year where the GOP already picked up probably at least 250 seats in other states.

In terms of the aesthetics, it is less clear if it is an improvement. The main aesthetic improvement is NY-21 is definitely more compact (though still not really compact) since it no longer wraps the entire way around NY-22. On the other hand, NY-02 and NY-25 are less compact since they are no longer simple pure compact Buffalo/Rochester districts.

NY-24 and NY-22 in particular have a bit less good PVIs than is possible in order to make them at least minimally compact. Most of these districts can be made more Democratic by making them a bit less impact, or alternatively can be made a bit more compact without much loss of PVI (some of the tentacles only improve the partisanship very slightly, so if you carefully tweak it you can end up with pretty much the same effects and maybe make it look a bit better).

[Sol]

One could, but Ithaca is being put to good use elsewhere to make a reasonably safe CD for Brindisi (who says he's running again). Binghamton is used to shore up Delgado, and Ithaca is better anyway. As I said, I have no illusions that I will persuade anyone, other than od course, myself.

It just means you're wasting the safe D county of Onondaga by dumping it in a Republican district--I can give you a Utica-Syracuse-Ithaca district:



link

59.8% D on the partisan average, and with a lot of areas without a history with Rep. Katko.

You can probably clean this up with an only marginal impact on the partisanship.

[Torie]

Did you know that the dividing line between the Hudson and St Lawrence river sheds runs right through the middle of Rome? I thought not. That is even better than that the tri-corner point of the Mississippi, St. Lawrence and Susquehanna river sheds sits in the middle of a flat farm field.